Patricia: ‘My mother would NEVER have given me this advice’
Patricia van Liemt is a radio presenter, writer and mother of Maria (13) and Phaedra (10). Every Friday she writes striking, honest, funny and above all recognizable columns about her life and motherhood.
“You just have to give her a really big mouth back. Or kick her bike.’ I hear myself say it and I am amazed at my own primary reaction. Am I really saying this? Or is this just a bad mother’s dream?
mean girls
Unfortunately not. It’s a normal Tuesday afternoon and I have a crying daughter on the phone. She is afraid. Terrified, because she thinks she is being met from school. And this is the only advice I can give her. Well, I can tell you that my mother would NEVER have said that to me. And yet I mean it. This kind mean girls smell from miles away that you are afraid. It’s a drop of blood in an ocean of sharks. And once you’re screwed, it could have disastrous consequences for the rest of your high school career.
Advice
Where I had reservations about Krav Maga last month*, I now search the internet for the nearest location. But dear parents, this is crazy! What’s happening out there? It’s a F*king jungle! Now I hear you think, yes but wait a minute dear Patricia, if you give all this kind of advice, what do you expect from our children? And you’re absolutely right, but what am I supposed to say to her? ‘Sweetheart, if they surround you and threaten you with at least six kids, just say you don’t like it. And that you would like to discuss it with them, but that it’s not convenient right now because you have to go to Krav Maga?’
Hm, that last one might not even be a bad idea, but you get my point, right?
Go, workouts
I’m experiencing it up close now, but I’ve heard many such stories over the years in my area. Children who are bullied so much that entire families have had to move! Holy!
And the strange thing is that in primary school we pull out all kinds of training for our kids, but that the learned morality slips off like an adolescent backpack by many children in secondary school.
‘Am I really saying this? Or is this just a bad mother’s dream?’
Suddenly it’s every man for himself. No, I’m saying that wrong. It is often precisely groups that make the lives of some children miserable. And the tricky thing is, as soon as adults come into play, the bullied ends up even lower on the social ladder, because that’s not cool at all. Yes baby moms, get ready.
We are a week further and the peace seems to have returned. I’m almost afraid to ask how that is possible, but I’m afraid my advice has helped…
*Krav Maga is a very effective form of defense techniques in which you are trained in a very short time to make yourself resistant to attacks of physical, verbal and mental violence and in dangerous situations. Think of attacks with a knife, pistol or other weapons.
Would you rather listen to Patricia’s column? Which can. Every Sunday between 4 and 6 pm she reads it on Wild FM.
